The Effects Of Task Type And Planning Condition On L2 Learners' Oral Production

Task complexity refers to the attentional,memory,reasoning and other information processing demands imposed by tasks on language learners.It increases learners' mental workload when performing tasks.Up to now,controversy concerning the effects of task complexity on L2 oral production still exists.Robinson(2001a)holds the view that increasing task complexity may be beneficial to oral complexity and accuracy but may lower the fluency.On the contrary,Skehan(1998)proposes that attentional resources are limited for human beings.High task complexity will negatively affect learners' production.However,both of them believe that providing planning time can effectively promote oral production quality.Task complexity can be effectively influenced by task type(internal features)and planning condition(external intervention).However,existing studies have not reached consistent conclusions on the effects of these two aspects on L2 oral production.The interactive effects of task type and planning condition on L2 oral production are also rarely investigated.Based on Cognition Hypothesis(Robinson,2001a),Limited Attentional Capacity Model(Skehan,1998;Skehan & Foster,2001)and Speech Production Model(Levelt,1989,1993),the present study aims to investigate the effects of two task types(picture-story narration and topic argumentation)and four planning conditions(no planning,online planning,pre-task planning and pre+online planning)on L2 oral production.Therefore,three research questions are proposed as follows:1)What are the effects of task type on complexity,accuracy and fluency of L2 learners' oral production?2)What are the effects of planning condition on complexity,accuracy and fluency of L2 learners' oral production?3)What are the interactive effects of task type and planning condition on complexity,accuracy and fluency of L2 learners' oral production?Participants in the present study were 120 freshmen majoring in English in Chizhou University.They were randomly divided into four groups based on four planning conditions: no planning group(NP group),online planning group(OLP group),pre-task planning group(PTP group)and pre+online planning group(PTP+OLP group).Half of the subjects in each group received picture-story narration task,with the remaining half receiving topic argumentation task.An oral test was used before main experiment to guarantee the insignificant differences among participants' oral proficiency.NP group and OLP group did not offer learners pre-task planning time,but PTP group and PTP+OLP group provided 10-minute pre-planning time.Task completion time in OLP group and PTP+OLP group was unlimited,while it was confined to 5 minutes in PTP group and NP group.After finishing tasks,questionnaires and in-depth interviews were conducted to further explore participants' allocation of attention and cognitive process during their oral output.Through the data collection and analysis,we have found that:1)The effects of task type on the L2 learners' oral task performances are different.Generally speaking,performances in picture-story narration group appeared relatively lower than that in topic argumentation group,due to the higher cognitive complexity in picture task.With regard to lexical variety and fluency,the performances of topic argumentation group were significantly better than that in picture-story narration group.However,these two task types did not show significant differences in syntactical complexity and accuracy.In addition,trade-off effects between accuracy and fluency were found in topic argumentation task.Research results have confirmed Limited Attentional Capacity Model(Skehan,1998;Skehan & Foster,2001),maintaining that higher task demands require more attentional resources,and the task performances will be negatively influenced when the limit of attentional resources is reached.2)Different planning conditions also have different effects on L2 oral production.PTP group exerted significant promoting effects on oral complexity,accuracy and fluency.L2 learners can process conceptualization and formalization stages in pre-task planning time,and then attentional resources are released to relieve cognitive burdens in the following production process.Contrarily,due to the influences of testing requirements and testing environment,OLP group do not effectively make use of the online attentional resources.Thus,the effect of OLP group was found insignificant on oral production.Research results have verified Robinson's views on resource-dispersing dimension(2001a)and Skehan's Limited Attentional Capacity Model(Skehan,1998;Skehan & Foster,2001).They both hold the view that reducing task complexity can positively facilitate L2 oral production.3)The interactive effects of task type and planning condition on L2 oral production are complicated.There existed significant interactive effects on syntactical complexity and accuracy.In two conditions with pre-task planning time,picture picture-story narration group outperformed topic argumentation group,but it appeared worse than topic argumentation group in conditions without pre-task planning time.However,significant interactive effects were not found on lexical variety and fluency.The performances of picture-story narration tasks always appeared worse than topic argumentation tasks in any of the planning conditions.It indicates that when the features of task demands are excessively strong,external intervention condition will not function effectively.Moreover,L2 learners' proficiency is also a confinement to oral production.Therefore,research results have partly testified Robinson's views(2001a,2003a),believing that oral production is not necessarily confined to limited attentional resources.The above findings of this study have some pedagogical implications.First of all,in second language teaching procedures,trainings for students' oral production should base on different features of tasks.Secondly,L2 teachers can provide pre-task planning time to release students' cognitive resources in order to relieve their cognitive burdens during online processing procedures.Moreover,their anxiety for oral production will also be decreased.Finally,teachers have to properly arrange planning time based on task features in classroom teaching,facilitating students' oral production.